When people think of ladybugs, they think of adults like in the left photo. These are the creatures you can buy in the nursery and release in your garden to hunt down and devour aphids.
The other photo is the ladybug that does the big hunting, the creature that can’t fly and has the appetite of a growing boy. Or girl… or whatever. In any case, it’s not a lady yet.
It all comes down to flight. Adults can; larvae can’t. So if you want something to stick around, search and gobble all aphids it can find, something with six stumpy little legs is a lot less likely to fly away home. Especially since “home” was supposed to be your yard and not your neighbor’s. If you buy a jar of ladybugs, the hope is that they’ll lay some eggs before wanderlust sets in, setting you up for some search and destroy work by the newly hatched larvae.
The best way to ensure that your aphids lead short lives is to encourage beneficial insects to stick around. Don’t spray pesticides all over, and grow some plants that tend to have a few aphids in residence to maintain the predator population. Have some other plants that attract adult hoverflies, attractive insects that eat pollen and look somewhat like small bees.
Aphids are very tasty, a much-appreciated delicacy in the insect world. They’re a gourmet snack for the larvae of lacewings and hover flies and ladybug larvae and adults.
Once everything is working and your predator insects have moved in, you’ll probably have only one buildup of aphids in spring – ours peaked last week and there are now numerous grazing ladybugs and other predators in evidence. There may always be a few aphids, but don’t panic – just think of them as snacks for future ladybugs.